


An Angel's Purpose

by thewwinterangel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (sort of), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Character Death, Fluff and Angst, I'm Sorry, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Mary Winchester (Mentioned) - Freeform, One Shot, One-Sided Attraction, POV Castiel, Pining, Pining Castiel, Sad Ending, and sadness, i dont know how to use tags, lots of moping, some aspects of canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 18:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11408400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewwinterangel/pseuds/thewwinterangel
Summary: An angel protects. An angel guards.Some say, for every man, there is an angel.(Where Castiel learns to love, and that some people are worth falling for.)





	An Angel's Purpose

**Author's Note:**

> A sort-of prose-ish one-shot from Castiel's POV, in a world where angels are real, but the only monsters are people.

Some say, for every man, there is an angel.  
They worship angels as divine creatures, praying, seeking. They choose to believe there is someone out there looking out for them, someone to raise them from their lowest points. They say they hear them whisper their name, over and over, leading them, watching them, watching over them. They are safe in the arms of their angel.  
There are, of course, others, those who seek materialistic and scientific truth. Those who believe what they see, revel in the security of routine. They don’t know what’s out there, not angels, monsters, not even humans. They stay in their bubbles and ignore the raging wars outside.  
Then, of course, there are exceptions. There are always exceptions, aren’t there? Those who don’t fit into the pattern, those who choose not to. And that’s what makes mankind special.  
This man is an exception.

The story begins in a thrift store.  
This thrift store is like any other thrift store. Dusty, forgotten, save for a few early-age hipsters that come window shopping every once in a while. There’s always that odd customer, the old man, glossing over figurines and mementos.  
In the back of the room sits an angel.  
Its body is porcelain, and its old. Bits of gloss is falling at corners, chipped edges smoothened over time. The paint was pastel, but now it’s pale. There’s a gentle coat of dust over its crafted wings. When the old man comes, he brushes his fingers over it, and he tells the shop owner to move it to the front.  
The shop owner is sceptical, as any sane person would be. But objects moved by this man sells out quickly, so he complies.  
A young woman, joyful, pregnant, blonde, enters the shop. She’s never been here before; there’s an aura around her that’s foreign. Yet she steps right in, familiar, belonging among the dusty objects. The angel watches as she circles around the shop, and there’s something about her that makes him frown. When she ultimately returns to the front of the shop and picks him up, he sees the faded scars on her arms, the ghosts of aged bruises. But these aren’t from abuse, no, these are from fighting. He sees the silver bracelet around her wrist, its age-old charms speaking of years, decades of history. He sees the worn locket, silver faded and rusty from opening and closing, sees the latin words engraved into the cuff, words of encouragement, of strength. And he understands.  
She’s an exception, too.  
He knows their kind, they are humans, but they are protectors. Warriors.  
Fighters.  
They fight, lead, the wars others fear. They have seen more blood, more death, than anyone could imagine. They are strong and stronger yet, for they are the unthanked and unrecognised soldiers walking among mortal men. They dedicate their lives to saving people, but they don’t do so without a sacrifice. Their sacrifice is them; they are the sacrifice. Many die young, little manage to get out.  
It is rare, at a time like this, to see women leading, battling, but the angel can see that this woman is different. Special. Raised into this life, and she may not be on the winning front, but she is winning. There is a spark of joy in her smile, a light in her eyes that speaks of hope, of future.  
If the angel could smile, he would be smiling. He was created to admire, to love. He does just that.  
The woman buys the angel. He follows her home, in her purse. Classic rock comes on the radio in her car. It’s the first sound he hears apart from voices in the wind.  
It’s dark in the purse. But light’s about to come.

Now, if you think this story is about the woman, that’s where you’re wrong. It’s about what comes after.  
Six days later, the angel is brought out of the purse, where he was almost certain he was forgotten.  
Because six days later, a baby boy was born.  
The angel is lifted to a shelf, where he sits, silent, watching.  
“Angels are watching over you,” the woman whispers to her child.  
If the angel could smile, he would.  
Because she’s right.

Of course, the porcelain figurine isn’t a real angel.  
Up in heaven, a young angel, merely centuries old, watches as a fish crawls onto land. He studies it, curious.  
“Don’t step on that fish,” his brother says, gentle amusement coloring his voice. “Big plans for that fish.”  
He didn’t understand it then, and he doesn’t now. But he will soon.  
He continues to watch over mankind, watch as time passes and it grows, grows from a small population to a rich civilization.  
Every angel is a soldier, and every soldier has a job, a purpose. His, he thinks, is to study humanity, and he does it well.  
He doesn’t forget the fish, and he follows it, watches it, studies it as it evolves from a four legged reptilian to an ape, to a human. He marvels at the beauty of something so simple, so fragile. He sees the storms, tornadoes and hurricanes of destruction coming its way, but it escapes, escapes every single one of them to become what it is now.  
Generations pass.  
The fish has descendants, a family. A human family. There’s first a son, then sons of sons, daughters, passing peacefully. Until one son meets a girl, a blonde girl. She comes from a family of warriors, the angel knows that. They fall into blissful, young, love. He watches her swear up and down that she’ll leave her life, she’ll leave it all, to build a normal life with him.  
He watches her buy an angel figurine at a thrift store.  
Six days later, a baby boy is born.  
And suddenly, he thinks, he’s got it all wrong. His purpose wasn’t to watch humanity. He was waiting. Waiting, for this specific moment in history.  
“Angels are watching over you,” the woman whispers to her child.  
The angel smiles, because she’s right.  
“Big plans for that fish,” and he feels an inkling of understanding.  
He’s found his purpose.  
This is his purpose.

The boy grows up, peacefully, happily. The angel watches over him. He makes sure they have electricity during a storm, water during a drought.  
The boy is raised normal, at first. He’s surrounded by love, by smiles and radiating happiness. His mother dotes on him. His father looks out for him. He teaches him to walk, to run.  
He is a good father, the angel thinks.  
There is war going on, big followed by small, but the woman doesn’t fight in it. The woman has gotten out. The woman has escaped the battles. The woman was lucky.  
Three years later, the woman is pregnant again.  
The boy is excited, and the angel is too. The boy jumps with joy, and there is a grin on the angel’s face as he watches the boy whisper things to the baby. He tells him about his day, despite barely have gone anywhere, and the things he sees, hears. As war goes on outside, the boy leaves his house less and less, but that doesn’t deter him. He’s barely four but he helps his mother as best as he can, waddling on tiny legs, carrying cups of warm water, bowls of soup. The boy is happy, content. He will be a great big brother, the angel knows. He watches, waits, until the baby is born.  
The angel was right.  
For six whole months, there is a consistent smile on the boy’s face as he bounces around his baby brother.  
But on a serene November night, that’s where it all starts.  
The angel tries to stop it, he does. But his brothers tell him to let it happen, that it was God’s will. That it’s Fate, it’s how it was supposed to be. Looking at his brothers, his superiors, he knows he cannot do anything against them. But he begs for the baby to live, and that’s all he gets before they are gone, and he stands, powerless, watching through the clouds at the bright headlights of the car that drives down the road.  
It stops at the house.

The woman wakes up to the splintering of their wooden door.  
The room is dark, and cool. The moon is high in the sky when she looks out the window, and there is a car on her driveway.  
A car that isn’t theirs.  
Only seconds have passed before she’s up, out, and silent as the night as she walks, barefoot, out of her bedroom. Her husband is still asleep, there is no point waking him. She can handle this herself.  
She looks like a goddess in the night, silver moonlight highlighting the white of her nightgown. But there is a knife in her hand, gripped tight with all the training and practice of her youth.  
She takes out the first of two men she sees from the back, but the second notices her. She throws the knife into the second’s chest but he dodges, and it embeds itself deep in his shoulder. He cries and falls and he’s struggling when a third jumps out behind her, taking her by surprise. He twists her around and guts her in the stomach with her own knife, and she must have made a sound because it’s that instant that the whole household wakes up. The baby is the first to wake and he wails. It is the most heartbreaking sound she’s ever heard, and she realises she must protect him. She must protect him with her life.  
She runs, stumbles, towards the baby, but so do the men. 

The boy runs out of his room when he hears his mother’s scream. He’s sleepy and he stumbles, steps on the too-long legs of his pyjamas, but he makes it out and the first thing he sees is blood, dripping blood, red against white and flowing fast. His mother’s face is pale as she moves towards the baby, and the boy wants to scream, shout, run, but he does nothing. He is frozen, frozen with fear, He feels his heart going cold in his chest, the shivering that starts to shake his entire body. His father comes out then, holding a gun, though he doesn’t know that yet. He shoots one of the men, but the other, bloody and grasping at his shoulder, is on him in a second. He fights the man off momentarily, and the boy is a little dumbfounded; he’s never seen his parents fight. The father grabs the baby and passes him into the boy’s hands, asks him to run, run out of the house and he’ll take care of this. The boy doesn’t know what to do so he does just that, heart thumping and barely thinking as he follows his feet out the door. He turns back as he hears a gunshot, and sees the man’s body hitting the ground. His father throws the gun on the ground and rushes to his mother, cursing and crying. The boy rushes in, baby cradled in his arms, manages to scream “mom!” one last time before she smiles a weak smile and her hand goes limp. Her last words were telling him to take care, take care of the baby, and there are tears streaming down his face that blur his vision but he can still see the knife stabbed into his mother’s stomach, see the blood pouring out, staining her dress; see the light that fades out of her eyes, hear the voice he would never hear again. The baby must have been stunned, or something, because he’s not wailing, not anymore, just blinking with wide, terrified eyes at his mother, motionless, cold, on the ground.  
It is his first memory.  
The boy looks up at his father then, and he expects something, anything, to tell him that it isn’t real, that his mother is still here, they just need to get her to a hospital, but he only sees his father’s eyes harden. He tells the boy to go to sleep, he’ll clean this up, but there’s a strong set to his jaw that the boy doesn’t remember seeing, and a rough undertone to his voice. When the boy asks if mommy’s okay, he doesn’t reply, and neither does he when the boy tells him goodnight.  
That night, the boy cradles the baby as he sleeps, and he dreams of his mother.

The next morning comes, and when he wakes up he doesn’t see his mother’s back, doesn’t smell warm pancakes or sweet honey. There is nothing, nothing to see, no blood or stain on their floor, no misplaced objects, overturned furniture, and he doesn’t see his father either. His parents' bed is unmade, and he sees the haphazard way his mother got out in the night. It seems almost like a dream and when he closes his eyes he pretends it is. He buries his face in his mother’s pillow and breaths in the scent of her shampoo, and he can almost hear her voice, picture her smile on her face when she wakes him up.  
He hears the baby’s cries then, and he forces himself to get up. He makes the bed the way his mother does, with the blanket folded motel-style (though he doesn’t know that either). He makes cereal for himself and heats up milk for his brother, then waters his mother’s little pot of white flowers. He breaths in their minty sweet scent and puts it back in a corner of the room, and he looks away because it reminds him of his mother’s dress the night she died.  
He hums the same lullaby he’s heard her sing to him a hundred times before to his brother until he smiles. He presses a kiss to his brother’s forehead the way his mother does, and sees the light that lights up his brother’s eyes when he looks at him. He’ll know it later as hope, love. He knows it now as happiness. Pride blooms in his chest. He’s barely five, but he swears he’ll take care of his brother the way his mother took care of him. His brother is his responsibility, and he must protect him. He must protect him with his life.

The angel watches the boy grow.  
Week one. The boy is quiet. He smiles around his brother, and some of it is even genuine when his brother smiles right back at him. There is food in the fridge. Leftovers, but they’ll be enough. Leftovers from the previous week’s lunches, dinners. Leftovers his mother made.  
The father is nowhere to be seen.  
Week two. The boy hums to himself. Songs, old songs. Songs he heard his mother sing. Songs she heard her mother sing. Songs of battle with melodies of war. Of loss, sorrow, death. Of bittersweet goodbyes, of shattered hope and the unknown, thousands of miles away from home with only the stars leading the way. The boy does not know what the lyrics mean, but the angel does. Oh, the angel does.  
Week three. The boy is restless, but ever so solemn. His eyes hold the darkness that shouldn’t touch a young boy. He doesn’t move, but he never stops moving. His fingers drum against his leg. He watches the brilliant Kansas sunsets, and the angel watches him.  
Four weeks and his father returns, but his father is different.

They don’t stay in the house for long.  
The angel’s heaven is filled with loading guns, the whirring of engines drilling his mind. The boy takes the porcelain angel when he leaves, cradles it in his small hands.  
It sits atop the dashboard of the car - the same car the angel’s so familiar with. It’s shiny and black as the richest of oils, swift as a lifetime and just as fast. The angel closes his eyes and feels the grind of the wheels against the road; long, wide roads that never end.  
Invisible in the backseat, the angel whispers soft, soothing words in languages only Heaven understands, though he knows the boy can’t hear him. He whispers until the bewilderment settles to a quiet acceptance, whispers until the boy falls asleep. And when the murmurs of even breaths fill the car, the angel smiles but the figurine doesn’t.

The road goes on.

The boy moves from place to place. He follows his father and his brother follows him, watching, growing, learning. His father is determined. There’s a fierce look in his eyes, the angel notices, at every town, every stop. It softens the first months when he speaks to his son, but as the days drag on, fire and a desperate sort of tiredness replaces the flame. The boy follows blindly. The boy knows only his father, and the toddler only his brother.

Soon, reminders become orders, and patience becomes rage. There’s a new scent that mixes in with the quickly comforting musk of the car. The boy doesn’t yet know what it is, but he will soon. Too soon. It’s the smell of the burnt golden liquid in glass bottles, stowed away in the trunk. It’s a smell that the boy quickly associates with family. 

The father teaches the boy to fight, much like the boy teaches his brother to read. They are as alike as they are different, for the angel sees, the father is quick, is smart, is intimidating. He trains like a soldier, like the way he was trained. But the boy is not a soldier. The boy is a child, and children, humans, the angel repeats to himself, must be protected. They must be protected. The angel is powerless.

The boy is a good teacher.  
The boy teaches his brother the way his mother taught him, young memories still yet fresh in mind. He is two different people. With his father he is stoic, obedient, strong. With his brother he is loving. He is caring and he is patient, and his kid brother looks at him like he is the light in a dark, dark cave.  
The brother learns. He grows.  
And so does the angel.  
He learns from the boy as the boy ages. He learns about humanity and fragility, brittle hearts and bruised lips and blood and closed eyes. He learns about the insignificance of mankind but the beauty of it, and other angels complain but he never does. Humanity is an art, and it must be protected.  
But most of all, he learns about love.

In some ways, he learns with the boy. The boy’s love for his brother is a pact, almost an oath, that he has sworn himself to. Learned from his mother then drilled by his father, he sees it - he knows - that it’s his duty to protect his brother. His, and only his. His father’s duty isn’t that; his father’s duty is to find justice, seek revenge. In more ways than one, the boy is his brother’s only family.

The angel learns familial love.

Seasons pass and the boy grows. He attends school. Sometimes. His father moves a lot, motel to motel, sometimes to an old friend’s house. The boy follows. He starts to complain as he gets older. New places. New schools. Going to school. Not going. He complains to his father first then himself when his father tells him to shut up. He does not complain about his father.  
The angel tries his best to improve the boy’s life. There’s a strange feeling in his chest that chokes him every time he sees the boy unhappy. The boy is only unhappy when he’s alone, the angel realises. He’s expressionless in front of his father. Relaxed in front of his brother. (The angel notices his tense shoulders beneath his smile.)  
Alone, he’s old.  
There’s a weariness in his expressions, a weariness that shouldn’t be seen on a boy that young. He is only in middle school and he’s tired.  
The angel’s heart beats for him.

The angel is not strong. He is not powerful. Still, he tries to harness as much energy as he can to help the boy. He can’t do much, and as much as it hurts, he cannot disobey his superiors. He cannot. He knows he cannot. He changes the weather sometimes. Makes sure the food doesn’t spoil. Whispers low melodies of heaven and angels to the boy, when he awakes from a nightmare. 

He helps the boy however he can.

The boy does not realise it. The boy is angry. Hurt. He asks for help sometimes. Eyes bright, hopeful, looking into the sky for someone - anyone - to help him. He asks for simple things, little things. For a few more weeks at a town. For a bigger helping of food. For books and clothes for his brother, for a better hunt and more leads because who knew what their dad would do to them if he was angry.

And he’s been angry, the boy will soon find out, for a long time. But now the boys knows it only as order, as family. As what he’s supposed to do and the consequences if he doesn’t. 

Time passes, swift and silent. The boy matures.

The angel learns the other kind of love.

The boy is old enough now. Old enough to wear his father’s oversized leather jacket like a coat, paired with ripped jeans and a smirk. He walks down the halls of new schools, his little brother beside him, but otherwise alone. It doesn’t get to him, though. The loneliness. At least that’s what it seems like.  
He brings home his first girlfriend.  
She’s pretty, the angel notes, in the youthful, innocent kind of way, soothing and soft to the boy’s dark, cool look. His father isn’t home when he brings her back, a faded spot of color in the otherwise bland room. He excuses the mess with a wave of his hand. She asks questions, innocent questions. The boy is getting flustered, the angel sees.  
The girl doesn’t come back.  
The angel doesn’t see the boy bring anyone else home.  
He’s confused, but he understands. Some things are better kept secret. The boy is one of his.

The boy does get girls, however. They’re the quick, flirty ones with suggestive smiles and fluttering lashes, and there’s a new one on the boy’s arm each week. It’s fiery kisses behind closed doors, a quick glance and playful giggles, but they always leave. They always leave, and so does the boy.  
New places. New towns. New people.  
The angel thinks he understands. Love is passion. Love is burning fire, and desire and secrets. 

Years pass, the angel understands more.

The boy brings home another girl. This one is quiet, with bright features and a charming smile. She talks and laughs and jokes, and the boy does too. The boy smiles at her when she turns away, and kisses her by the door. The angel learns, this is love. It’s in the soft way he regards her, the gentle fingers on the small of her back. The way the angel catches the boy open up to her the way he’s only seen the boy open up to his brother.

Yes, the angel thinks, this is love.

More time passes, and though it pains the angel in a way that’s aching and grim, he realises it’s inevitable that the boy travels down the same path as his father. There is an age old fire blazing in the boy’s eyes, the same that was in his father’s.  
The fire gets bigger when his father dies.  
His brother is different. While the boy holds a gun, the brother has a book, pens, papers. Both boys research late into the night about records, surveillance, locations, but while the boy does so to catch the men that killed his parents, his brother does so to convict them in front of a jury.

Soon, they separate. The brother goes to college - a damn good one too. The boy continues his never-ending search.

The angel watches as the boy, now a man with a soul older than his time, loses himself in work, in alcohol, in nightclubs. He brings home girl after girl after girl, with seductive winks and bright makeup. They stumble in behind him, and the angel tries his best to ignore the sounds behind closed doors. It’s another kind of pain, he realises, a vaguely throbbing hurt at the bottom of his heart.  
It’s also another kind of love, he thinks at first, before he realises it’s not love at all. There’s no tenderness, no affection, no gentleness about these. It’s the boy’s way to get his mind off his work, and he’s always gone in the morning.  
The few times he doesn’t, the angel’s chest hurts more. He makes a cocoon with his wings, and curls up inside, wondering why. 

He doesn’t know he’ll find out soon.

Now, there comes a day in every being’s life where their souls, their life-forces are tested in a life changing way that leaves them stronger or dead.  
There is a war, and the boy enlists.  
His angel screams from his spot in Heaven, a devastating, echoing sound that burns a hole in the angel’s chest. War. War. The angel knows war. He’s seen enough, and been through some himself.  
The battle of the Heavens, of Michael and Lucifer. Humans’ wars, fought with power borrowed from explosives and metal. He’s led a war before, the angel.  
War never ends well.  
War never ends.  
But the boy cannot hear him, and he enlists.

The angel vows to protect him. To protect him with his life, to do whatever he can. The boy has protected enough. The least the angel could do was to return the favour.  
But it is not easy. No, the angel must fight.  
There are rules in Heaven, rules created before Earth itself, before war, before emotion, before time. Angels are powerful beings. One of those rules is to watch, to guard, not to interfere. To make sure humanity travels in the right direction, and to make sure they do it themselves.  
Eons later, the angels are complacent. They watch, but they do so without motivation, without thought. They are soldiers, copies, bodyguards. They are not guardians.  
Guardians nurture. Guardians protect. Guardians love.  
No, they are not guardians.

But this angel, this angel is different. This angel is compassionate. This angel cares. This angel loves.  
He has sworn to do everything to protect the boy, the boy who deserved so much more. And like the boy’s mother, like the boy himself, he will keep his promise.

While the boy fights down below, the angel has his own battle in Heaven. A painful, dirty battle, and it’s somewhat like leading an army, he thinks, but he’s only leading himself.  
It’s never before seen, an angel helping a man. A mortal man who knows nothing of the universe, and hence is worth nothing to the universe. An insignificant speck, the other angels jeer, mocking him, yet he has captured your attention. Millions of centuries of knowledge and experience, and pure, heavenly energy, and you want to help this man. What’s so special about him? Huh? He’s just a teeny tiny ant, among billions of other teeny tiny ants. 

That’s not true, the angel says, he’s evolved. He’s strong. He deserves better than he’s got. He’s special. The other angels only laugh, every sound piercing him like a sharpened blade. He’s not special, they say. There’s nothing special about him.

It goes on for days, and the angel is getting worried, because the boy doesn’t have days. On the battlefield, seconds can change a life. Moments can destroy one. And the angel cannot - will not - allow that.  
He explains this to his brothers, and they whisper, casting unreadable glances, until one steps out. The angel recognises him, a fellow soldier, once fighting alongside him. His tone is grave when he speaks.

He hasn’t captured your attention, he says, he has captured your heart.

Hushed whispers. The angel is uncomfortable.  
Below him, he can see bloodshed and tears, wounds stained with rust and mud, dying eyes and fire.

Tell me, the last archangel asks, is it true? 

The angel is silent. He cannot reply because he does not understand it himself. Love. It’s a foreign concept to angels, for they are not taught to love. They are taught to protect, to guard. Protection is not love.

But then he remembers the boy, and what he has learned from him. He remembers his smile, soft and fond, when his brother took his first steps. He remembers his eyes, burning with emerald fire, and his hands, deft, determined. And he understands.

Love is not just fondness or lust, he thinks, love is the surging, overwhelming want to protect, to ensure the other gets what they deserve. And the boy deserves the world. And the angel is ready to give it to him.  
See, the archangel is not wrong. The angel is in love. Not just with the boy and his heart, but with his burning, beautiful soul, brighter and brighter with every downfall, every plight thrown its way. He is in love with its everlasting flame, shining in a desperate, cruel world. 

But our story does not stop here, no, there is more than this realisation. With these words the angel falls, for the boy and from Heaven and in every sense of the word, wings burning with desire and determination as they tear from his body. The pain is immeasurable, but it is nothing compared to the pain of the initial gasp of battlefield air as the angel took his first, wobbly step upon bloodied grass and dead bodies.  
He looks at the disaster, blinking for the first time, and realises how much they have failed. As guardians, as angels, they have failed their one job, to protect and guide. While they rest in Heaven, humans on Earth are destroying themselves and everything else. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He doesn’t get why they never saw this. They have failed. 

As a species, they have failed.

But the angel must not care, no, not now. Today he must only care about the boy, his boy. Tomorrow he could care about the rest, if Heaven decided to listen to him. Tomorrow he can try to rescue the world. Today he will try only for his.

And so with determined footsteps and eyes too bright for the battlefield, too full of hope and naivety, the angel walks towards the frontline, for that is where the boy lies. That is where the remnants of his Grace leads him, and that is where he goes. It fades, the last strands of familiarity that tie him to Heaven, as he nears the boy, and suddenly, suddenly he is all alone.  
But even if he’s not an angel, he will always be a soldier. He is right where he belongs.

He finds the boy minutes later, injured but fighting, and calls out. His voice is hoarse from years of neglect but it is clear, and the boy turns around. The angel starts. The boy is ever so beautiful up close, the fire of his soul still burning bright in his eyes. And through that the angel sees the hurt of the past and a grim determination, youthful hope for tomorrow despite what he’s gone through, and it mirrors what the angel feels inside. Yes, he’s sure, he’s found him. But he’s not a boy anymore, no, he’s a man, a soldier just like him, a fighter.

But things don’t always go according to plan, no, and not all stories have a happy ending. As the boy turns, a confused sort of wonderment in his eyes, the angel hears the gunshot before he sees it. By instinct he rushes forward, pushing the boy aside, and he’s smiling down before he remembers he’s not an angel anymore, he’s not nearly invincible anymore, he’s barely even human, and humans get hurt by these kinds of things, and then there’s something in his chest and he’s falling backwards onto the soft ground beneath.

The pain blossoms a moment after, from his chest through his body, and it feels like his wings getting torn, it feels like someone’s burning a hole in his chest, it feels like watching men die one by one and millions by millions, while he knows his friends, comrades above are sitting and mocking and complaining. He is silent, but his hand comes away red. 

And then suddenly there’s another hand in his, warm and comforting, and he’s surprised by the way his human body yearns for the touch. He blinks a few times, barely registering the tears rolling down his cheeks, from pain or hurt or both, and the greyish sky above him is suddenly replaced by a gorgeous face. The boy’s face, and it’s filled with concern. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” the boy says, wincing as he sees the blood oozing, pouring out of the angel. The angel knows he doesn’t have much time left, the boy does too. “What’s your name?” the boy asks, then, in the same warm, gravelly voice the angel has heard thousands of times from the skies above, that the boy has used towards his brother, his girlfriends. Yet now, hearing it so close, the angel is overwhelmed, by his voice but also by the amount of care in his words, towards but a complete stranger. Though impossible, the angel seems to fall even more.

And then he closes his eyes, wincing, because that’s all he is to the boy. A stranger. A stupid, stupid stranger who waltzed into the battlefield and took a bullet for his mistakes. “Cas-“ he chokes out, the pain suddenly worsening as he spoke.

“Hey, C-Cas, look at me, alright? You’ll be okay. Everything will be okay. Thank you for what you did. I can never repay you.” And the angel smiles, because he doesn’t have to, no, he’s already done enough. He’s already given him, taught him, the most valuable lesson. And he does look at him, look into his eyes and into his soul. They say eyes are the window to the soul and they are right, because the angel sees immeasurable beauty, impossible energy, and such certainty that the angel knows, the angel knows he will win, they will win. He might have lost this battle but he will win the war. And everything might not be alright, but that’s fine, he realises, because he’s completed his mission. He’s dying but he’s completed his mission. His life was purposeful. 

His mission was to protect the boy, and protect the boy he did. The angel looks up one last time, and he knows he’s dying. But the boy was right. He’s okay. He lets go. And the boy will be the last thing these eyes see, his voice the last thing these ears hear. He closes his eyes and he lets go. 

He wasn’t just a stranger. He wasn’t just an angel. He was a guardian angel. And he guarded well. The boy will soon come to realise that, and then, then he’ll have a new mission. And it’s a tragedy, the way their story goes; 

...maybe, perhaps, almost.

**Author's Note:**

> my first fic on AO3!! thank you all for reading and i'm sORRY. it would be really nice if you could leave a comment/kudos if you liked it! i love and appreciate every single one. 
> 
> xo kayleigh


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